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BELGIUM 2017 - Blanche - City Lights

Re: BELGIUM 2017 - Blanche - City Lights

Originally Posted by RainyWoods

I think feeling music with your body is more genuine than pretentiously twisting words around the mouth for three minutes, muttering and slurring in a very forced and fake (hipster indie pop) "i'm so delicate and special" way, but I guess that's just me. Her way of singing is completely soulless. I live for unique and different voices, but not contrived ones.

You know you sorta described Salvador's performance there right?

I'm not sure however, if we talk about Georgian entry and some others, that over-wail a song that is completely shallow from the get-go is having "soul" but each to their own...

Re: BELGIUM 2017 - Blanche - City Lights

I hate how people are so quick to dismiss young artists like Blanche. They're supposed to have it all together, having found themselves as artists and have stage presence at that age. Give her a few years and I bet you she'll be bigger than Loïc. She just needs to find her own persona and I'm sure she knows her insecurities, so she's probably already working to overcome them. I praise her for keeping herself up with the way people were trashing her before the semi-finals. Heck, even our own commentator (the hero of our time) was straight up bullying her for her shyness. It's even more disgusting that these are adults trashing on her.

Re: BELGIUM 2017 - Blanche - City Lights

Originally Posted by ESCKerli

I hate how people are so quick to dismiss young artists like Blanche. They're supposed to have it all together, having found themselves as artists and have stage presence at that age. Give her a few years and I bet you she'll be bigger than Loïc. She just needs to find her own persona and I'm sure she knows her insecurities, so she's probably already working to overcome them. I praise her for keeping herself up with the way people were trashing her before the semi-finals. Heck, even our own commentator (the hero of our time) was straight up bullying her for her shyness. It's even more disgusting that these are adults trashing on her.

Re: BELGIUM 2017 - Blanche - City Lights

Re: BELGIUM 2017 - Blanche - City Lights

My review of "City Lights":

For a few years now, Belgium has become a country to watch out for in Eurovision. Part of their musical upgrade (and successes) imo comes from the fact two broadcasters are responsible for the contest, so there is like an internal competition, which I think is wholesome when selecting acts internally. Even better, each party unofficially represents a region (Flemish vs Walloon), which certainly fosters their competitive spirit. Personally, I think RTBF has won over VRT every single time this decade because they've tried to push the envelope several times with either catchy entries or experimental-ish efforts (Copycat, With Love Baby, Rhythm Inside). On the contrary, despite their success with "Me And My Guitar" (which wasn't my cup of tea at all), VRT has mostly sent bummers (Would You?, Mother...); "What's The Pressure" was musically and visually an improvement from their past efforts, still it wasn't really that special to me, I think they can do better. Just so you know, my favourite Belgian entry of the 2010's is "With Love Baby", which would have deserved much more than it got. Anyway, after Loïc avant-garde slayage in 2015, I thought it would have been difficult for RTBF to find a worthy successor, but they found it with Blanche's "City Lights". It is an atmospheric electro-pop ballad that indeed could have been sung by Dido (it would have fit her last album "Girl Who Got Away" perfectly) or maybe Birdy (even though I'm not familiar with her work). There is no introduction as it starts right away with Blanche's deep voice, a minimalistic piano accompaniment and some electronic snap sounds. Opening with the chorus is risky, but here I guess it was a clever choice as the melody is easily hummable and memorable. After that, the first verse kicks off with a more elaborate electro set of light beats and an undescribable background sonic loop that actually creates tension and adds dynamism to the orchestration. As the song keeps the same pace from beginning to end and the composers were probably mindful of it sounding linear, introducing that tiny element made the verses sound like they were faster than the chorus, even though there was no actual pace change, which was kinda cool imo. The atmosphere is mostly dark and nocturnal thanks to background synths, the melody is quite nice: nothing too intricate, but the lines flow nicely. The chorus has got a more cosmic/dreamy feel to it, Blanche is accompanied by subtle backing voices, low piano notes and synths. The second verse is pretty similar to the first one, the short break between this part and the next chorus is noteworthy though, I think it sounded effective during live performances. Apart from the usual arrangements, some synth notes were added to the second chorus. Then comes a very welcome bridge, breaking the monotony of the melody a little while building on the chorus momentum. Then we kind of go back to a higher-pitched version of the very first chorus used as an intro, singing it in a higher pitch was the way to go to avoid easily avoidable linearity, if that makes sense Eventually, the song ended with a full-blown chorus. Overall, I think this was a solid effort musically speaking. As far as mainstream pop music is concerned, RTBF understood that defending some material with mass-appeal doesn't mean it shouldn't sound high-end or relatively "adventurous" arrangement-wise. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying "City Lights" is a super original piece of music, however it mixes a catchy and memorable melody with a gloss that took it to another level compared with most mainstream pop songs in Eurovision. What I'm trying to say is that mainstream pop is not the devil when it's made tastefully, with the will to introduce elements/effects that elevate it and make it escape the beigeness/formulaicness syndrome we know only too well. Pros: nice atmosphere, rather cute arrangements, solid melody, nice deep voice. Cons: it may be too linear and uneventful to some, and I would partly agree with that, but I guess that was intended somehow.

My musical highlight would be the second verse and its dramatic arrangements, followed by the short break that I find effective.

-Vocally, RTBF chose a singer with an interesting voice, so props to them for that. However, the issue that has been raised at some point by pretty much everyone is that Blanche's personality (her shyness in particular) kind of ruins the potential she has as a performer. Some found her vulnerable and stuff - each to their own - personally, all I saw from her on stage was a corpse-like attitude during the first two minutes of the song, and then a scared doe facing car lights towards the end. I'm not saying this to bash her or anything - actually I agree with what @ESCKerli said above - but the truth is first impressions are what matters in Eurovision and I sincerely felt uneasy watching her perform in the first semi because she didn't seem to be enjoying being here (and I couldn't get into the song due to that). As a very shy person myself, I can relate, still I wish she hadn't been so expressionless, even her face looked frozen. No need to say her semi performance didn't convince me at all at first listen, hence why I was on the fence about the song (and the poor sound quality didn't help). Thankfully, she did better in the final vocally-speaking, despite no changes in terms of body language. She couldn't help it, that's for sure, yet her attitude didn't help me like the song live (which needed a better facial and physical delivery, if that makes sense).

-Visually, it wasn't quite what I expected either. Giving Blanche's rather limited performing abilities, I would have liked a more intimate and striking presentation tbh. They played with white moving spotlights, a dark background and a sphere with dots (which reminded me of Vienna's logo). Strobing lights appeared during the first verse and geometrical shapes filled the screens. I'm not convinced by the frosty blue/dark blue colour scheme, I think it was too cold-looking, a bit too common and not really in line with the music (black, white, grey and yellow like in the music video would have been more suitable imo). There was a cool concentric effect on the floor though, I liked that. What I liked the most is the lights moving during the part right after the bridge, they should have played more on a "spotlight choreography" and could have made the screens less busy imo. Blanche wore a long black dress with frills, tbh I liked it and it was miles better than the white dress they had considered at first. To sum up, while the visuals weren't bad or tasteless by any means, I believe they weren't up to the song and the atmosphere of it wasn't well translated. Like Croatia's "Lighthouse" last year, they could have done the song justice with an emphasis on spotlights.

-Results-wise, I couldn't predict that one because musically, it 100% deserved to get through to me, but performance-wise, it was disputable and as lots of non-qualifiers gave much better performances, it may open a debate about whether good songs with meh performances or meh songs with good performances should be favoured (from a professional point of view). Personally, Eurovision remains a song contest to me - not a mere talent show - so musical merit should keep an advantage over great vocal delivery if a choice has to be made. With that being said, "City Lights" did have its place in the final imo and I disapprove of the jury voting (once again) which wouldn't have made Belgium qualify, I get it might not have been in their top 5, but the semi was musically poor enough for Belgium to reach their top 10 based on the song only imo. Eventually, RTBF did it again by placing 4th for the second time in a row, viewers at home really liked it! Too bad juries put them below the average songs of Norway, Australia and Sweden for instance. In my personal ranking, "City Lights" is my 10th favourite song of the year. Well done neighbours! Thanks to RTBF for sending another song I can care about, even though "With Love Baby" remains my fave effort so far. I wish the best of luck to Laura Groeseneken in Lisbon and I hope VRT will deliver the goods! Fingers crossed